It’s kind of baffling how poorly Amy Adams has done this season. It looked like everything was going to line up perfectly for her. She had Sharp Objects on television to show her range, her main competition missed a few enormous precursors, and Vicemassively over-performed at the Academy. And even then she still couldn't beat Emily Blunt at the SAG Awards.

It might not be the massive meltdown that Bradley Cooper is experiencimg, but Adams and her team really mishandled her Oscar campaign, too.

I think the closest she probably ever got to winning might be actually for her first nomination for Junebug. Every other time, she is either the second, lesser nod from the same film as one of her co-nominees (Doubt, The Figher) or a surprise candidate nomination (The Master, American Hustlewith no real chance of winning. She has racked up quite a few nominations which is not insignificant. She is also very well liked which makes it more baffling that she has never won.

She's never been the frontrunner. She's maybe been close, but she's always been up against competition that the Academy as seen as stronger. This is what Leo DiCaprio dealt with for the longest time as well, until he strained himself in a weak enough year for him to win. I think Amy's gonna have to pull out an undeniable performance or be surrounded by weaker competition.

Regina King is also extremely well liked in the industry which I’m sure is really helping her own campaign.

"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."

I forgot about Nasty Habits - terrific film and when I first saw it I knew virtually nothing about Watergate and had no issues with the film. Have to admit I don't think it has aged that well as my second viewing a few years ago wasn't as enjoyable as the first time round, though second viewings can sometimes be like that.

“Those Koreans. They’re so suspicious, you know, ever since Hiroshima.” Constance Langdon (Jessica Lange) from American Horror Story: Season One

Greg, Nasty Habits has been available through Warner Archive, Amazon and various other DVD sellers since August 2014.

In addition to Glenda Jackson, her fellow nuns include Melina Mercouri in a takeoff on Kissinger, Geraldine Page and Anne Jackson as versions of Haldeman and Ehrichman and Sandy Dennis as a version of John Dean. Anne Meara is the nun-receptionist (Nixon's secretary?) and Edith Evans in her last film is the nun whose death sets off the fight between Jackson and Mercouri to replace her.

It's enjoyable on its own, but better if you know something about Watergate.

“‎Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.” - Voltaire

One political satire that I have been intrigued about tracking down on video, etc., is Nasty Habits. It was made a few years after Watergate and parodies it by portraying a scandal at a convent. Glenda Jackson plays a nun based on Richard Nixon.

Cinema in general has been very sparse when it comes to political satire. I would imagine most satire is on television and of course comics in daily newspapers - which are dying out.

The last great American political satires were from 1999: Alexander Payne's Election & Andrew Fleming's Dick. Ironically, both have teenage girls as the central focus. Something of a shame that Dick is largely forgotten today. If double bills still existed Dick with make a great double with All the Presidents Men. One a serious take on the Watergate scandal, the other a very clever satire on it.

“Those Koreans. They’re so suspicious, you know, ever since Hiroshima.” Constance Langdon (Jessica Lange) from American Horror Story: Season One

Big Magilla wrote:To me, and many others, Cheney was a horror show that deserved more serious exposure, not a sophomoric yuck-yuck fest. What will we get when the Trump show ends its run, an All the President's Men style rebuke or something like this?

Ok. Well, political satires can be as good, and as biting, as political dramas, actually. I guess you didn't find Vice's satire good enough.

Big Magilla wrote:Ok, but why "smarmy"?The director and his actors were smarmy in the sense of dictionary meaning number while the film itself was smarmy in the sense of dictionary meaning number 2:

1. Excessively ingratiating or insincerely earnest.

2. Relating to or indulging in lewd conduct; smutty: smarmy jokes.

Oh ok. No, by European standards - especially when it comes to political satires - it would never be considered "smarmy". But I guess we are less gentlemanlike when it comes to politics

To me, and many others, Cheney was a horror show that deserved more serious exposure, not a sophomoric yuck-yuck fest. What will we get when the Trump show ends its run, an All the President's Men style rebuke or something like this?

“‎Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.” - Voltaire

ITALIANO wrote:I wonder if one of the (unconfessed, maybe even unconscious) reasons why this admittedly imperfect effort has been attacked by so many is, simply, an unconfortable reaction to what the movie says about American politics, the war in Iraq and more generally, power.

No, it's the smarmy way it's done. Cheney and Rumsfeld's roles in the Bush administration were widely known before Bush's 2004 re-election and known by just about everyone else in America by 2006 when the Dems took over Congress the last time.

Ok, but why "smarmy"?

The director and his actors were smarmy in the sense of dictionary meaning number while the film itself was smarmy in the sense of dictionary meaning number 2:

1. Excessively ingratiating or insincerely earnest.

2. Relating to or indulging in lewd conduct; smutty: smarmy jokes.

“‎Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.” - Voltaire

ITALIANO wrote:I wonder if one of the (unconfessed, maybe even unconscious) reasons why this admittedly imperfect effort has been attacked by so many is, simply, an unconfortable reaction to what the movie says about American politics, the war in Iraq and more generally, power.

No, it's the smarmy way it's done. Cheney and Rumsfeld's roles in the Bush administration were widely known before Bush's 2004 re-election and known by just about everyone else in America by 2006 when the Dems took over Congress the last time.

ITALIANO wrote:I wonder if one of the (unconfessed, maybe even unconscious) reasons why this admittedly imperfect effort has been attacked by so many is, simply, an unconfortable reaction to what the movie says about American politics, the war in Iraq and more generally, power.

No, it's the smarmy way it's done. Cheney and Rumsfeld's roles in the Bush administration were widely known before Bush's 2004 re-election and known by just about everyone else in America by 2006 when the Dems took over Congress the last time.

“‎Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.” - Voltaire

I found it certainly very interesting. Like most Europeans, while I had heard of Dick Cheney, I really didn't know much about him, and I definitely didn't have any idea about his role in the invasion of Iraq and other pivotal moments in America's recent history (did Americans know about all this - especially while he was still vice-president?). So I have to admit that I never found the movie boring.Is it pefect? Maybe not, maybe it's true that (unlike for example Sorrentino's similar Il Divo) it never really finds the (difficult) balance it tries to achieve between satire and political (and, even more problematically, human) drama. But while not as exciting as it hopes it is, it's full of original bits (I liked for example the revelation of the narrator's identity towards the end), and, let's face it, it's not stupid - and intelligence, whenever I find it in an American movie, seems to be so rare nowadays that even when it doesn't exactly lead to a masterpiece, I can't ignore it. (It's also well acted at least by Bale and Adams - in this movie she at times reminded me of Shelley Winters - and I'm not sure that more charismatic performers would have been more effective in the same roles. Nominations won't be undeserved. And as others have said, the make-up is just great).Now, I can understand doubts about aspects of this movie - but not from those critics who praised A Star is Born or Roma to the sky. And I wonder if one of the (unconfessed, maybe even unconscious) reasons why this admittedly imperfect effort has been attacked by so many is, simply, an unconfortable reaction to what the movie says about American politics, the war in Iraq and more generally, power.

I strongly disliked this--as in, maybe even more than Green Book. Vice does make me appreciate even more how Oliver Stone handled Nixon and W.

I liked The Big Short, and I felt like a lot of McKay's ideas worked, both as interesting ways to tell that story, and they all worked together. Here, like MaxWilder says, he tries half a dozen styles--anything and everything he can do to make it seem alive and interesting--and it really is tiring. It feels as if he has no faith in the narrative to assert itself (although I guess that lack of faith is fair, because this is a very thin narrative) so he's just throwing whatever tricks he can think of at us to keep us interested. It's hard to say much about the performances because everyone is essentially playing these characters as ogres, but I'll say they probably gave the performances that McKay was looking for. McKay is not an unskilled filmmaker, but given the single-minded thesis of the film, and the over-emphatic one-dimensionality with which he harps on it, I don't think this is all that different from a Dinesh D'Souza film.

I really wanted and expected to like Vice (I watched the trailer a dozen times--I think it's superb) but I didn't.

Its take on Lynne Cheney was muddled at best. In exactly one scene she's shown to be social climber ("Half the people in this room want to be us. The other half fear us"), which I didn't buy at all.

The absurdist bits (the "wigs" joke, Alfred Molina as the waiter, the faux-Shakespeare dialogue) were groaners. The halfway-point scene we're not spoiling here went over like a lead balloon for me. McKay tries at least a half-dozen styles. It's tiring.

Steve Carell wandered in from a different movie.

Did you know that Cheney managed the first Gulf War?

A Famous Actress appears in explainer segments, but not as herself. Or anyone specific. Distracting.

Christian Bale is astonishing, but I can't see him winning best actor. If Bradley Cooper loses, it will be because the populist/low-brow Bohemian Rhapsody movement is stronger than we think.